There are varying degrees of truth to what you say, but the real point is about how risk management and mental health interact. Reasons that free soloing isn't

There are varying degrees of truth to what you say, but the real point is about how risk management and mental health interact. Reasons that free soloing isn't necessarily suicidal-tendency levels of poor risk management: 1. Do Not Fall zones aren't unique to free soloing. This is also true for ALL ice climbing, but also for a lot of trad and aid climbing. And even in some cases for sport climbing and bouldering. In fact, free soloing is -- for many practitioners -- a natural extension of the run-outs found on sparsely protected lines. I've taken more risks with my life on the sharp end than out alone. I think that's probably true for most climbers. And the closest I've come to death was a stupid trundling mistake on a to-be-developed sport climb. 2. Life is dangerous. Free soloing a juggy ledge-strwen route below 5.5 definitely feels WAY, WAY less dangerous than the drive home. For example. You are more likely to die on the drive home. More to the point -- you are more likely to die on rappel or from rock fall. 3. Free soloing routes that I know up to 5.6 is no more dangerous -- for me -- than hiking on an exposed trail. And in some cases feels way safer than climbing with a rope and gear (see #1; also, climbs at that grade rarely have clean falls). I suspect that for me free soloing up to 5.9 is probably less dangerous than mountain biking or most skiing. That said, the sort of soloing Austin was doing is definitely of the riskier "fuck that" variety. Oh, and dangerous soloing is definitely correlated with mental health events. The trope of guys doing a ton of free soloing after bad breakups exists for a reason. Anyways. This is a hard topic to talk about -- especially online -- because "the first rule of free soloing club is...". So you don't have the usual "first hand experience" vs "hypothetically thinking about this" split. IMO it's time to be a bit more open about it, particularly given the mental health thing. I spent a lot of time free soloing. Some of it was dangerous, but some of it was probably no less irresponsible than driving late at night or skiing a bit to aggressively on a groomer. The dangerous stuff happened when I was in a bad place. Let's talk about that more. That's why I appreciated this piece.